What's going on at McLaren, or not going on?

[Veyron]

Haven't they been working on this car for two years already?



Planet f1.com:

"Problematic McLaren MP4-19 off the pace
05/02/04
Almost a month after McLaren last pitted their MP4-19 against the competition the Woking-based squad has again ventured out into the open to test with other teams. However, the results have not been at all positive.

Prior to Monday's start at Barcelona the last time McLaren went head-to-head with their rivals was during the 8 - 11 January test session at Jerez. There they managed to secure a top six position for each of the four days, while on day three David Coulthard was second quickest, and on day four Kimi Raikkonen set the best time for the day.

Those impressive performances, though, have not been repeated at the Circuit de Catalunya this week. McLaren have yet to finish in the top six, the highest position being eighth, and have been plagued by reliability gremlins. Added to that, the MP4-19 has been off the pace.

On day one, Monday, McLaren completed just 52 laps as technical problems hampered their running. The team's top finisher was Alex Wurz, but he was 3.202 seconds off the pace. The day's running prompted the Austrian to tell Autosport: "The car felt so good in Valencia. But today I just couldn't get the flow going."

Tuesday saw a slight improvement, however, Wurz, still the fastest driver, was 2.212 seconds off the pace. Although Wurz got in a decent about of laps, both Kimi Raikkonen and Pedro de la Rosa suffered problems throughout the day. De la Rosa's day was cut short when he broke the floor of the car, and later suffered mechanical problems.

The third day of testing once again saw McLaren close the gap a bit, but Raikkonen, who was the quickest of the three days in action on Wednesday, was still 1.418 seconds back, which put him in 11th place. His team-mate David Coulthard, together with de la Rosa, suffered engine related problems.

With just over a month to go until the start of the 2004 season McLaren, who have been testing their 2004 car longer than any of the other teams, looks to be running into far too many problems.

[ales]

They'll be just fine. Sandbagging is also not out of the question.

[djmr2]

also keep in mind, they were using the 2003 wing for most of their tests until recently when they changed to 2004 spec, which coincided with their lack of pace.